Words&Dirt

“What right did he have to go to church?  What did he and God talk about behind the back of all these women exchanging winks that was the thing she minded if they’d just think about love when they make it instead of thinking about whatever they do think about––whatever they’re going to do whenever they’ve got rid of this little hot clot that’s bothering them.  You can feel in men’s fingers if they’re thinking about you and tonight Harry was at first and that’s why she let him go on it was like lying there in a bath of yourself his hands going around you but then he began to be rough and determined and it made her mad to feel him thinking about himself what a good job he was doing sucking her along and not at all anymore about how she felt, exhausted and aching, poking his thing at her belly like some elbow elbowing her aside.  It was so rude.”

––Rabbit, Run, by John Updike, pg. 215

“‘We’ve scraped together everything mankind could produce, a fleet that makes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing in a swimming pool.  We have some new weapons, too.  But it might not be enough, even so.  Because in the eighty years since the last war, they’ve had as much time to prepare as we have.  We need the best we can get, and we need them fast.  Maybe you’re not going to work out for us, and maybe you are.  Maybe you’ll break down under the pressure, maybe it’ll ruin your life, maybe you’ll hate me for coming here to your house today.  But if there’s a chance that because you’re with the fleet, mankind might survive and the buggers might leave us alone forever––then I’m going to ask you to do it.  To come with me.'”

––Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, pg. 25